Margaret Thatcher Quotes

262 Sourced Quotes

The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money.

Margaret Thatcher
I don't mind how much my Ministers talk, as long as they do what I say.

Margaret Thatcher
There's no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first.

Margaret Thatcher
Of course it's the same old story. Truth usually is the same old story.

Margaret Thatcher
A man's right to work as he will, to spend what he earns, to own property, to have the State as servant and not as master: these are the British inheritance. They are the essence of a free economy. And on that freedom all our other freedoms depend.

Margaret Thatcher
The trouble with you John, is that your spine does not reach your brain.

Margaret Thatcher
The truths of the Judaic-Christian tradition, are infinitely precious, not only, as I believe, because they are true, but also because they provide the moral impulse which alone can lead to that peace, in the true meaning of the word, for which we all long.. . . There is little hope for democracy if the hearts of men and women in democratic societies cannot be touched by a call to something greater than themselves.

Margaret Thatcher
We shall not be diverted from our course. To those waiting with bated breath for that favourite media catch-phrase, the U-turn, I have only this to say. 'You turn if you want to; the lady's not for turning.'

Margaret Thatcher
But if Saddam had been in a position credibly to threaten America or any of its allies – or the coalition's forces – with attack by missiles with nuclear warheads, would we have gone to the Gulf at all?

Margaret Thatcher
Just rejoice at that news and congratulate our forces and the marines... Rejoice.

Margaret Thatcher
The desire to win is born in most of us. The will to win is a matter of training. The manner of winning is a matter of honour.

Margaret Thatcher
On becoming Prime Minister:
I would just like to remember some words of St Francis of Assisi which I think are really just particularly apt at the moment – 'Where there is discord, may we bring harmony; where there is error may we bring truth; where there is doubt, may we bring faith; and where there is despair, may we bring hope.'

Margaret Thatcher
I stand before you tonight in my red chiffon evening gown, my face softly made up, my fair hair gently waved…the Iron Lady of the Western World! Me? A cold war warrior? Well, yes—if that is how they wish to interpret my defence of values and freedoms fundamental to our way of life.

Margaret Thatcher
It was a lovely morning. We have not had many lovely days. And the sun was just coming through the stained glass windows and falling on some flowers right across the church and it just occurred to me that this was the day I was meant not to see.

Margaret Thatcher
'Europe' in anything other than the geographical sense is a wholly artificial construct. It makes no sense at all to lump together Beethoven and Debussy, Voltaire and Burke, Vermeer and Picasso, Notre Dame and St Paul's, boiled beef and bouillabaisse, and portray them as elements of a 'European' musical, philosophical, artistic, architectural or gastronomic reality. If Europe charms us, as it has so often charmed me, it is precisely because of its contrasts and contradictions, not its coherence and continuity.

Margaret Thatcher
(The Community Charge is) the flagship of the Thatcher fleet.

Margaret Thatcher
In my work, you get used to criticisms. Of course you do, because there are a lot of people trying to get you down, but I always cheer up immensely if one is particularly wounding because I think well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left. That is why my father always taught me: never worry about anyone who attacks you personally; it means their arguments carry no weight and they know it.

Margaret Thatcher
You know, if you just set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything, wouldn't you, at any time? And you would achieve nothing!

Margaret Thatcher
It had the effect of cementing the Anglo-American alliance. What's the good of having bases if when you want to use them you're not allowed to by the home country. It made America realise that Britain was her real and true friend, when they were hard up against it and wanted something, and that no one else in Europe was. They're a weak lot, some of them in Europe you know. Weak. Feeble.

Margaret Thatcher
The messages on our banners in 1979 - freedom, opportunity, family, enterprise, ownership - are now inscribed on the banners in Leipzig, Warsaw, Budapest and even Moscow.

Margaret Thatcher
If we open our hearts to God, He has promised to work within us.

Margaret Thatcher
Just rejoice at the news and congratulate our armed forces and the Marines. Rejoice!

Margaret Thatcher
When will Labour learn that you cannot build Jerusalem in Brussels.

Margaret Thatcher
Everything a politician promises at election time has to be paid for either by higher taxation or by borrowing.

Margaret Thatcher
This business of the working class is on its way out I think. After all, aren't I working class? I work jolly hard, I can tell you.

Margaret Thatcher
Let us, then, draw together in the name, not of jingoism, but of justice

Margaret Thatcher
If in the 1930s nuclear weapons had been invented and the Allies had been faced by Nazi SS20s and Backfire Bombers, would it then have been morally right to have handed Hitler control of one of the most terrible weapons man has ever made? Would not that have been the one way to ensure that the thousand year Reich became exactly that? Would not unilateralism have given to Hitler the world domination he sought?

Margaret Thatcher
I can cope with nine of them, so they ought to be able to stand one of me. They could end the tiresomeness and stubbornness by giving me what I want.

Margaret Thatcher
I don't want to fight any wars; if you can get them off before we get there, you do it, but off they go.

Margaret Thatcher
At one end of the spectrum are the terrorist gangs within our borders, and the terrorist states which finance and arm them. At the other are the hard left operating inside our system, conspiring to use union power and the apparatus of local government to break, defy and subvert the law.

Margaret Thatcher